This young Alaskan EcoGeek has just hit the electric vehicle market with something a little unorthodox. We’re used to the sleek, shiny, and not-quite-ready EVs from major auto companies. And then there’s the straight-up peculiar offerings from the little EV startups. But Bart Grabman has converted a POS 1971 Beetle to an all-electric vehicle.

The car charges some old, used lead acid batteries via a wall socket, and the batteries power an Advanced DC 8" 203-06-4001 Series Wound DC motor. For now, the vehicle gets him around town, but we don’t imagine those batteries will last him much longer. In any case, a little Alaskan ingenuity might just be what the rest of this country needs.

Step in the right direction, so don’t stThis is a great start…but the comment about fossil fuels does not really apply. He is using plug power to charge the batteries. When doing these projects, please include solar (or any non-pollute source) power to charge the batteries. We need to clean up the coal powered power plants (just displacing the pollution) before the Greens will take this activity seriously.

Good JobHey, at least he did it. I’m not going to get into how he can get the best performance. What matters is that he took a vehicle that ran on fossil fuels and converted it to an electric vehicle. That deserves applause not ridicule.

If a similar conversion was made on the positivly slim Citreon 2CV (approx 600kg with the std engine). I think performance wouldn’t be too bad, especially for nipping around town.
I wonder how much the components cost for that project?